Friday, October 21, 2011

First Watch: CANT, 'Believe'

Chris Taylor is a busy guy. He's not only a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist for the psychedelic folk-rock band Grizzly Bear, but he's also produced all of the band's albums since Yellow House. Now he's releasing solo material on his label, Terrible Records, under the moniker CANT, and promoting the release of his album, Dreams Come True, with a video for "Believe."

With its big, sludgy bass line, layered vocals and syncopated rhythm, "Believe" sounds like the sort of breakup song a guy from Grizzly Bear would create. It's what Taylor calls "a song about the value of truth between you and your lover, and the consequence of withholding." However, the song takes on an eerier sheen when paired with grainy footage of UFOs (complete with date stamps from '90s-era home videos) and other extraterrestrial phenomena hovering over city skylines and desolate farms.

Lines like, "Things I haven't shown you / You won't believe / Things I haven't told you / You won't believe" turn from the plea of a desperate lover into a challenge to viewers to decide what's real and what's fake. It's as if Taylor is saying, "Look at all this evidence! How can you deny these things exist?"

We asked director Jamie Harley to tell us a bit more about his inspiration for the video.

Jamie Harley:

I've always been fascinated by this kind of footage. Even if you know that what you see is an obvious fake or just an out-of-focus weather balloon, there's always a poetic quality to these kind of images.